Nocturnal

Most times I don’t close my eyes until the sun comes up. Although I’m usually sleepy hours before, I busy myself on the internet or with the television. I oscillate between watching old re runs of the Boondocks and Facebook. Facebook is like the perfect distraction. It allows me to quietly peer into the lives of all my “friends” without suspicion. I can silently look at their pictures, read their favorite quotes. I search until I find pictures of their families, marveling at how many people are married or have children and chuckling to myself when I see how much weight everyone has gained. I reach way back in my memory trying to recall the names of former friends or one night stands….furiously trying to remember. To connect. I just realized that at 4 am the glare from the screen isn’t enough to create a mirror. I can’t see myself, snooping, searching, and most importantly wasting the precious moments of my life. Everyone knows that I’m nocturnal but I’m sure they assume I’m up writing or looking for a job or searching for an agent….I’m ashamed when my girlfriend calls and asks me what time I went to bed and I have to say 6:30am but I have nothing to show for it. Not a paragraph typed or a sentence edited. Just the warm buzz of my computer, hot from searching and seeking out the lives of other people while mine deteriorates by the day. I have gotten so exhausted with myself, with the cycle. So I’m taking the first step to change it. My sleep habits suck. If I am up late, I am going to sleep late. And the whole day is wasted….the cycle begins again. I lay around doing nothing and then its evening again. All the talk shows have gone off, and the “responsible adults” have retired to bed…. there is just me, my computer, Facebook, and online television.


I think part of the reason I am not able to focus on writing for others is because I have no place to put the parts of me that will never make it to the book. The dark parts of me that only show their heads between 4 and 6 am. The depressed pieces that laying dormant during the day only to resurrect each evening in the form of procrastination…..sucking the time out of my days; leaving behind a lazy skin sac. A unique form a vampirism. But I will use this space to purge myself of the good, the bad and the ugly; A place to ready my mind for the work of my spirit.